A womb of one’s own.

The Irish Times published a number of adoption related stories in recent months, one about how new legislation has affected current domestic adoptions followed by a more personal piece regarding three women who gave their children up for adoption. But it was a letter from one Father Con McGillicuddy which has caused me to brood a little on the subject. Father Con thought it ‘sad’ that women who did not want to be mothers chose abortion when there are – as he put it:

“There are many pro-life agencies such as Cura available to help women with unwanted pregnancies, providing guidance and facilities towards bringing their children to birth; children who could then be adopted by couples who would give them a happy life.”

All of which is laudable, except for one thing. For those women who travelled to the UK it is not just about what to do with a baby at the end of the pregnancy, but that they travel because they do not wish to be pregnant in the first place. They do not wish to be pregnant for 40 weeks, or go through an unwanted labour or deliver a child and hand it over to strangers.

While I have nothing but sympathy for any woman or man longing yet unable to have a biological child, it is extremely questionable to suggest that women in a crisis pregnancy automatically become incubators for the childless. And while I take no umbrage with the sentiment behind what he wrote and agree that we ought to be supportive of women in crisis pregnancies, I feel we ought to be supportive of ALL of their decisions. I certainly think it is shameful that we as a nation are so eager to stick our heads in the sand while we export our problem to the UK. Five thousand women. Five thousand.

Father Con is right, it is sad commentary, but I doubt we feel that for the same reasons.

Like this:

Related

10 Responses

Thank you for making the point that ‘it is extremely questionable to suggest that women in a crisis pregnancy automatically become incubators for the childless.’

It is also extremely glib of the priest in question to suggest that the woes of the infertile can or should be solved by those who find themselves pregnant when they don’t want to be.

No woman makes the decision to abort lightly. As you quite rightly point out, women have abortions not because they don’t want children – but because they don’t want to be pregnant. Why they don’t want to be pregnant is, actually, irrelevant – they should be allowed to make informed decisions regarding their pregnancies. It is not the business of the State or their next-door neighbours or the priest or anyone else.

It is a sad reflection on this society that we criminalise these women, that we lack compassion for them and that we view women as incubators and treat them so badly – up to and including labour and delivery – as soon as a man impregnates them.

Sad we have to wait for someone to tell us it is actually a human rights issue. It is not about rights or wrongs. Abortion is not an easy choice for most women. Ignoring those 5,000 women we are simply living in denial, and putting them at risk.

I’m not sure that’s the case, really. I think abortion wasn’t an easy choice for most of the women whose stories we hear. But there is a huge group of women (mostly those living in places such as the UK or Iceland where abortion is perfectly legal and available on the NHS) for whom the choice *was* easy, and the procedure even easier.

The trouble is, I think it’s this “ease” that often upsets people, isn’t it. Pro-lifers and the Catholic Church are horrified at the thought of women being able to terminate a pregnancy without any great deal of pain or consequence. So, most of the time I feel it’s better not to tell people how “easy” my choice was, for fear of it setting back any kind of future referendum.

But maybe I’ve been wrong in doing this? Is it better to talk openly about abortion, even when the story is: I got pregnant; I had an abortion; it was easy.

Hard to know.

But, going back to the original post, yes it is absolutely preposterous that a woman should be made to feel she should carry a foetus through to birth to be able to “gift” it to childless couples. There are a whole myriad of consequences to consider. It’s not like the woman can suddenly become a baby-making machine just because she’s not ready to care for and raise a child herself. It’s actually extremely angering, and just another example of women being looked upon as objects and not actual human beings by the Church.

I’ve a friend who was badly disabled by the birth of her first (very much wanted) daughter. And another friend who found (again, a wanted) pregnancy severely disruptive to her mental health, and threatened on more than one occasion to jump out of a doctor’s window if they didn’t help her. You should hear them on the subject of women being persuaded or forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

I have oft noticed the way anti- abortion people throw up the line, ‘they have a choice to give the baby for adoption’ as if that was such an easy carefree decision when it is anything but. I know women who have their babies adopted, and it is a life altering decision that is steeped in regret, pain, anguish and difficulty. It actually makes my teeth hurt to see it offered so casually as a solution to an unwanted pregnancy.

For the record – as Annie notes- I know more than one woman who has had an abortion and never regretted it. I know women in a crisis pregnancy who kept their children and are delighted with THAT decision. One size fits all does not cover womankind and I wish people would realise that and stop making a woman’s womb a political and moral ball to kick on a whim.

As someone who was pregnant, carried the baby to full-term, gave him up for adoption, wanted to die of the pain – a body blow of physical hurt to the chest which had me doubled over on the bathroom floor, retching – and as someone who finally didn’t have the strength to carry through with it – yes, reader, I demanded my baby back, and broke a million hearts – let me state categorically that the notion that a woman can incubate a baby for nine months in selfless martyrdom and then give it away is ridiculous. Biology will play its evil tricks and leave yawning holes in the soul.
My son is a teenager now, and every day I think about it all at least once, and fight back vomit at the idea of not having him as my own.
Maybe some women who’ve had abortions do the same, while others recognise that what they got rid of was the possibility of life, and not life itself. I reckon the latter is much, much harder,
Why in the name of this priest’s God should women be incubators indeed? And what misogynistic God would demand it?
Thank-you Arlene.

No, thank you, thank you for your story and your understanding and empathy. Would that there was more of it to go round. Your choice was a difficult one I’m sure, but you did what you needed to do and now you have your beautiful son. And he you. And that is ultimately worth a few broken hearts.

One of the biggest weakness of the pro-life argument over the past 30 years is that they’ve never quite come to terms with the fact that the problem isn’t abortion it’s pregnancies that aren’t wanted/planned. I think some on the pro-choice side had somewhat aided and abetted in this misplaced focus but more out of a desire to confront the pro-lifers on their terms and not actually out of wishful intent to miss the point.

Abortion is simply an outcome from that situation of being pregnant when you didn’t want or intend to be. If we focused on eliminating the pregnancies occurring in the first place then abortion itself would be almost a mute issue.

But faced with a choice of ensuring comprehensive sex and relationship education in our schools and homes and or preserving an unrealistic and I think irresponsible concept of human sexual relations the pro-life movement has stuck its hands in its pockets and pretended that we live in a world of no sex outside of marriage.

There again, being of a safe, legal and rare mindset in Ireland is all too often viewed as some sort of cop-out by those who get to do the talking on the issue in the media.

One aspect that tends to be missed on a practical basis is that were abortion to be legislated for in Ireland, it’s highly unlikely that the issues around having to travel would entirely disappear. I can’t see too many women given the small size of the country and the population distribution would find it that straightforward to drop to a local clinic. My understanding from the UK experience is that often times women will still travel from one city to another simply to ensure some sort of anonymity and privacy. So women from Donegal, Kerry and elsewhere would still be travelling, and they might feel it as easy to travel to Liverpool as to Dublin.

I totally agree, women are not incubators or baby-making machines for other childless couples and even though we are in the process of applying to adopt a child, I totally wish for women’s own choice. Adoption shouldn’t be used as a contraceptive but everyone makes mistakes. However, 5,000 women travelling is a lot and if the process can be easier by having it in Ireland, then that should be the case.
Perhaps abortion is easy for some and some women will not regret having an abortion but some may well do at some stage in their lives and surely there would be more access to counselling and advice if the abortion was taking place in their home country.
There are many children in Ireland who are in long term foster care who might be better off being adopted and knowing they are in a permanent home with parents who love them but that’s another argument🙂